Feeling Betrayed: Managing betrayal from love, friends, family

Betrayal /bɪˈtreɪəl/ - the action of betraying one's country, a group, or a person; treachery.

That's how a dictionary defines the word betrayal. It's just a word, yet, this word hurts, a lot. We all experience betrayal differently. Some think not keeping a promise is betrayal while some think watching porn is already betraying your partner.

Despite individuals would define what constitute a betrayal differently, the feeling of being betrayed is the same. Feeling betrayed means putting your hopes up for someone and they just go ahead and do the opposite, which brings harm upon you. 

Not going to lie, this is probably the worst kind of betrayal. Your wife is supposedly your closest partner. Arguably, family is supposed to be your closest ally. But the truth is, if you're closer to your family than your wife, why did you decide to live the rest of your life with your wife and not with your family? Of course, you feel closer to your wife. It's human nature. Being betrayed by your best friend and also your life partner hurts like hell.

Betrayal comes in many forms. With your wife, the most common and the most probable one is cheating. Maybe she cheated on you and you feel betrayed. She violated the sacred vow she made to be solely committed to you when you get married. It's frustrating. It hurts, to put your trust in someone just to get a heartbreak like that.

It doesn't always have to include a third person. Maybe you feel betrayed because your wife decided to take up a job overseas for 5 years without consulting you first. You feel she isn't doing her part to keep the family together or the least, to talk to you first before making the decision.

It's natural you feel how you feel. When two souls are bound together for a life long journey, you would think both are as committed and wouldn't do anything to compromise the sacred bond. The sad truth is, sometimes people just do things without thinking about the consequences, or worse, they probably think you shouldn't be hurt by their actions. They just don't think about what they do can hurt you a lot.

Interestingly, feeling betrayed by friends is something that pretty much everyone has been through. Doesn't matter it's when you're in middle school and your bestie became friends with your worst enemy or when you're in your 20s and your friends said they are getting married without telling you they're in a relationship to begin with.

Feeling betrayed by friends is an interesting and rather philosophical concept. It's not as standardised as feeling betrayed by your wife. Betrayal comes in so, so, so many forms when it comes to friends. Basically you think your friends should take your feelings into consideration when doing certain things. But your friends are never going to care as much as your wife, that's just it. You probably don't care about your friends as much as your care about your wife, right?

You have a lot of friends, but just one wife. So it's natural you can consider all your friends' feeling because making a decision. And sometimes, that's how it happens. Your friends may not be doing it on purpose or it's not even directed at you at all. It's just hard to not take it personally when things happen. You think your friends are trying to hurt you on purpose when they weren't even thinking you when they made the decision to begin with.

It's hard to get over feeling betrayed by friends because a lot of the times they really weren't doing it on purpose and truth to be told, with the amount of friends you have, how many can you make sure you can consider before making a decision?

Family is supposed to be our strongest ally. A safe port we can always go back to in times of storms. Feeling betrayed by family leave you feeling empty, because you've lost your last safe haven. It leaves you feeling insecure. If you can't even trust your own family, who on earth can you trust now? Understandably, it's a scary feeling.

Do you ever feel your family is only acting on their own interest? Or that you're simply their puppet to grow their business? Or they decided to act against your favour for someone else in the family? Family feud can be hard to mend, because a lot of the times you're on the right side when you tell the story, but they're also on the right side when they tell their side of the story. That's why it's tricky to deal with a family betrayal. What you see as a betrayal is just you not understanding their reasoning in their mind.

With everything being said, how exactly do you get over the feeling of being betrayed by someone?

First step, ask yourself and them, are they doing it on purpose or they genuinely thought it's good for you, or they just simply weren't even thinking about you? If they did it on purpose, it's clear that they don't value you. Then it's time to accept it and leave those people behind. If they really thought what they did wasn't a betrayal, then clearly you two shares different values. You probably can't change their values but you can make your stance and say you don't wish for this to happen again. If they weren't even thinking about you, you just need to tell them upfront you're very upset about it and if they do care about you, they will make the change for you.

You need to understand that you can't beg for someone to change. If they want to change for you, they will. If they don't want, there's no reason to take them back into your life. Distant yourself from people that aren't willing to change. You can change yourself too but there has to be a limit to what you can accept and can't. If they crossed that line, it's time to say goodbye.

As cliche as it is, only time can heal. All wounds take time to heal. Nothing works magical to get you from feeling betrayed to letting go. There're things you can do to speed up the process, but at the end of the day, it takes time. 

You just need to know that it's never your fault for trusting someone. You're not stupid nor naive. You have a kind heart and there are people out there that deserve your trust. Don't let one bad seed ruin it for you.

Don't force yourself to heal when you're broken. Let your emotions out and have a good cry when needed. You can't move on when you still have feelings bottled up right? A night with wine and Netflix is always good.

As always, being in nature is a great way to heal. Just grab your backpack and go for a hike on top of the mountain and sit there for the sunset, make a tent and lie down to enjoy the stars at night. It's the most natural way of healing.

If you're a city and don't find nature mesmerizing, that's fine too. Grab your wallet and go nuts in the shopping mall sales! Just try not to spend your whole savings on it. After doing what calms you down, it's time to meet up with your friends and do fun things together. It's a good way for you to connect with people again and don't let your past experience block you from putting your trust in those that deserve it.

No one wants to experience betrayal. Sometimes things just happen to take a bad turn and now you're in a deep hole, stuck in the emptiness and helplessness. It's not your fault for putting your trust in someone. There're just people that don't deserve our trust but there're plenty of people out there that do. You just need to find a way that helps you so you can heal and learn your lesson.

It's not about putting your guards up and not let other people in. It's by letting people in and getting hurt that you will eventually find a beautiful soul as kind as yours to share your joy with. If you're going through the struggle right now, take the time to read a book or get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a better day, it always will.